الإسلام والغرب: نحو عالم أفضل

I SLAM AND THE W EST

Fabio Rugge In my intervention I would like to develop the following three points. 1.”Models” of political system – as typical products of comparative political science – are hardly reliable, from a scientific point of view, and can easily be manipulated for the purpose of building hierarchical relations between peoples/nations/states. 2. “Political Philosophy” and the “History of Political Institutions” offer better ground for the analysis of political systems and are of greater help when comparison is established without hierarchical pre- judgments and on an equal footing basis. The example of Rawl’s “law of the peoples”. 3. In any case the study of international relations is still too much based on inter-state, inter-governmental approaches, whereas non governmental actors are growingly active in the international arena. The example of the “municipal web”. I am not a specialist either of international relations, nor of any of the many disciplines dealing with religion. I am therefore not particularly entitled to address a topic like “Islam and the West”, as the title of this Forum reads. My field is actually political institutions and public administration in a historical and comparative perspective. But I need not recall that to an Italian scholar, educated and professionally trained in a European context, history and comparison hardly trespass the boundaries of the Western World however conceived of. And I am no exception. Nonetheless I accepted the invitation of the JCS, basically for two reasons. First, as a citizen of this world – and I do not say “globalised world” for the reasons I shall explain – I feel profoundly implicated by the issues raised in the terms of reference for this meeting. Secondly, being here

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